Press Conference by the Press Secretary 2 March, 1999

1. The entry into force of the Anti-personnel Mines Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty) on 1 March
2. The election of Olusegun Obasanjo as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 27 February
3. The border conflict between Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the State of Eritrea
4. Current state of North Korea's bilateral relations with the United States of America and Japan
5. Speculation regarding another missile launch by North Korea
6. Possibility of Japanese access to North Korean underground nuclear facilities
7. Potential topics of discussion for the future visit of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi to the Republic of Korea
8. Opposition by the People's Republic of China to Japan's development of a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system

1. The entry into force of the Anti-personnel Mines Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty) on 1 March

   Press Secretary Sadaaki Numata: Good afternoon. I would first like to say a few words in connection with the fact that the Anti-personnel Mines Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty), came into force yesterday, 1 March. Minister for Foreign Affairs Masahiko Koumura issued a statement on this yesterday and said that Japan sincerely welcomes the entry into force of the Ottawa Treaty. This Treaty has great significance as a part of the international efforts aimed at a universal and effective ban on landmines, and it is expected to greatly contribute to solving problems derived from anti-personnel landmines, more than 100 million of which are believed to be buried worldwide.

   The first meeting of the States Parties to the Treaty will be held in May this year in Maputo, Republic of Mozambique, in which the way to make the Treaty more universal and the cooperation among governments, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in demining and victim assistance will be discussed as important themes. Japan for its part intends to actively contribute to the success of this meeting through the concerted efforts of government and private sectors. Japan intends to lead the international community for the purpose of the early achievement of the "zero victim" target through further efforts for a universal and effective ban on landmines and demining and victim assistance. Under the Ottawa Treaty, Japan for its part is under the obligation to destroy about 1 million landmines and we are making budgetary allocation to do this. The obligations on the States Parties to the Ottawa Treaty are to destroy these landmines in the course of four years. I also add that we are actively calling on those countries which have not signed the Ottawa Treaty to sign it as soon as possible. Some of the non-signatories at this point include, for example, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of India, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and some Middle Eastern countries.

   Now, in order to make this ban more universal, one avenue which we are exploring is to work toward another treaty banning the transfer of landmines -- that is, banning the export and import of landmines -- and to that end, we are working together with like-minded countries. There is a group of 23 like-minded countries in the context of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. We are working together with these like-minded countries to call for the negotiation of a convention which would ban the transfer of anti-personnel landmines, as a complement to existing international agreements on anti-personnel landmines -- and by existing international agreements on anti-personnel landmines, we have in mind this Ottawa Treaty, as well as the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

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2. The election of Olusegun Obasanjo as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 27 February

   Press Secretary Sadaaki Numata: Secondly, concerning the presidential election in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we welcome the fact that on 27 February in Nigeria, a presidential election to shift back to civilian rule has been implemented peacefully and smoothly under international surveillance. Japan strongly hopes that under President-elect Olusegun Obasanjo of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who will be inaugurated on 29 May, Nigeria's civilian rule will be firmly established, and that political stability and economic development will be promoted in Nigeria, which has the largest population in Africa and has influence over the stability and development of the whole region. In light of the significance of the election in terminating the military rule that has prevailed in Nigeria since November 1993, Japan decided to extend financial assistance worth US$ 410,000 to the United Nations Trust Fund for Electoral Observation and, at the same time, dispatched six election observers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Japanese diplomatic missions overseas as a personnel contribution to the election. Our observers, who worked together with other international observers -- for example, from the European Union, Canada, the Kingdom of Norway and so forth -- concurred in the statement assessing the results of this election, which found that the election took place peacefully and although there may have been small problems in the process, on the whole, this election has been found to reflect the general will of the Nigerian people.

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3. The border conflict between Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the State of Eritrea

   Press Secretary Sadaaki Numata: My third comment is a brief one on the border conflict between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the State of Eritrea. We welcome the fact that on 27 February, President Isaias Afwerki of the State of Eritrea sent a letter to President Robert Fowler of the United Nations Security Council accepting the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Framework Agreement as a step forward to promote a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Japan expects that the two countries will immediately cease armed conflict and lose no time in starting talks for solving the conflict. We note that President Fowler also issued a statement welcoming the acceptance by Eritrea.

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4. Current state of North Korea's bilateral relations with the United States of America and Japan

   Q: My question concerns North Korea. As you all know, recent news reports have said that the United States was intending to provide North Korea with food assistance directly, not through United Nations programs. Could you please comment concerning if it has happened, as American sources said it would be in February? Secondly, I would like to know where the relations between Japan and North Korea now stand.

   Mr. Numata: Firstly, with respect to the status of the consultation between the United States and North Korea, they resumed the consultation on the suspected nuclear facilities on 27 February in New York. Though they met on 27 February, they did not meet on Sunday, 28 February. As I understand it, the consultations are to continue. There is no end-date set for this round of consultation. And to the extent that the Spokesman, or Deputy Spokesman, of the Department of State when asked about the status of the negotiation said that they, namely the United States Government, had a practice of not commenting on those talks while they are in progress, it makes it very difficult for me to comment on the substance. I am aware of certain reports regarding the possibility of food assistance or something of that kind, but given this background, I am not in a position to confirm these reports. Having said that, this consultation between the United States and North Korea has been going on for some time, and when the last round of consultation ended, as we understand it, there still remained a considerable gap between the positions of the two sides. However, at the same time, the two sides agreed to continue the consultation, so that in itself, might be an indication that the consultation is at least moving forward, not backward. One can only speculate as to what sort of points are in fact being discussed between the two sides. From Japan's point of view, we do consider it very important that the North Korean side grants access to these sites in a satisfactory manner to the United States side, so as to dispel the suspicion concerning the possible nuclear weapons development by North Korea.

   With respect to your second question about the current status of our relationship with North Korea, as you know, in the wake of the launch of the Taepodong missile at the end of August last year, we have temporarily suspended the resumption of normalization negotiations with North Korea. We have also, for the time being, suspended food assistance to North Korea. However, at the same time, we have resumed our cooperation to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) scheme. On top of that, since the convening of the current session of the Japanese National Diet, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has been saying that if there are positive or constructive movements on the North Korean side with respect to this suspicion on the part of the international community, regarding the underground nuclear facilities and so forth, and if there are constructive responses from North Korea on the pending issues between Japan and North Korea -- that includes, for example, the question of the suspected abduction cases -- we will be ready to try to improve our relations with North Korea. That is the message that we have been sending to North Korea. To this date, we have not had a positive response to that from North Korea. We will continue to await such a response. I may add that unfortunately, the situation we have today is one in which we have no effective channels of communication with North Korea, but I do not think it is in either's interest to have a situation where the door is shut to either side which may wish to communicate. It is with that in mind also that we are waiting for some responses from North Korea.

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5. Speculation regarding another missile launch by North Korea

   Q: Related to that, from Japan's point of view, is there still some worry concerning another missile attack from North Korea? There has been a lot of speculation that Pyongyang was preparing for another attack.

   Mr. Numata: Again, this is the sort of subject on which rumors are rife. There may be fragmented pieces of information or reports floating around, but to this date, we have no hard piece of information to suggest that another launch might be in the offing. Of course we continue to follow this question with keen interest and we do attach importance to urging North Korea not to engage in the development, production or testing of these missiles, and that is something we have been trying to convey to the North Korean side, together with the other members of the international community.

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6. Possibility of Japanese access to North Korean underground nuclear facilities

   Q: If it is possible for Japan to pay a fee to have a look at North Korean underground nuclear facilities, would Japan do that?

   Mr. Numata: I doubt it. We are not a direct party to this consultation which is taking place, but with respect to the idea of some kind of a compensation in return for access to these sites, we do share the view with the Government of the United States and also the Government of the Republic of Korea that such an idea would be totally unacceptable. However, again, the United States is the party in the direct bilateral consultation with North Korea on this matter, so we are not in a position to directly contemplate the possibility of possible access to these sites.

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7. Potential topics of discussion for the future visit of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi to the Republic of Korea

   Q: Prime Minister Obuchi is supposed to visit Seoul in the near future. Is the topic of coordination between Japan and the Republic of Korea and the United States going to have priority in his agenda?

   Mr. Numata: Yes, that is quite likely. The date for Prime Minister Obuchi's visit to the Republic of Korea has not been decided yet. It is being coordinated, but we are coordinating this visit with the view to it taking place toward the latter part of this month. The main items of talks between Prime Minister Obuchi and President Kim Dae Jung of the Republic of Korea might very well include, on the one hand, our bilateral relationship with the Republic of Korea, especially in the sense of following up the very successful visit by President Kim to Japan in October last year. As you may recall, in the course of the visit by President Kim, Japan and the Republic of Korea issued a Joint Declaration which set out the directions for our cooperation as we go into the 21st century, as well as a rather detailed Action Plan to implement these ideas, and to monitor the progress of these actions contemplated in the Joint Declaration and the joint Action Plan would be one important topic. At the same time, given the importance of the situation regarding North Korea, the continuation of the process of policy coordination between Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States, I imagine, would be another important topic.

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8. Opposition by the People's Republic of China to Japan's development of a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system

   Q: How are you handling the Chinese opposition to theater missile defense (TMD) system?

   Mr. Numata: Firstly, the Americans call it theater missile defense (TMD). We call it ballistic missile defense (BMD). There is a difference there in the sense that the United States tends to think of it in theater-wide terms, whereas we think of it purely in the context of the defense of Japan for the purposes of self-defense. So we need to be a little more precise and we keep saying "ballistic missile defense." That is my first point. The Chinese have expressed certain views on this question and to that, we have been explaining that this BMD is something which is designed purely for defensive purposes for the defense of Japan, so it is not designed to pose any threat to third countries like China. Secondly, that what we have decided on until now, is to participate in the so-called technological research on this project and that we are only in the stage of technological research. We have not made decisions with respect to whether or not we will proceed to the question of development, first, and then to the question of deployment, next. We have had opportunities to talk about this kind of issue with China in the context of our security and arms control dialogue and these are the points that we have been explaining to the Chinese side.

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